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The genes inherited from the Neanderthal man ancestor played a significant role in determining the massacre due to Covid-19 which marked the Val Seriana in the Bergamo area, with thousands of victims.
A study by the Mario Negri Institute confirms previous investigations into the causes of the high mortality rate recorded in those areas, attributing a decisive weight to the genetic predisposition of the population. An important step forward in scientific knowledge on the SarsCoV2 virus which arrives as we prepare for the new vaccination campaign, with updated vaccines that will be offered free of charge to all those who wish to administer them.
From the Origin study, published in the journal iScience, it can be seen that a certain region of the human genome was significantly associated with the risk of becoming ill with Covid and becoming seriously ill in residents of the areas of Bergamo most affected by the pandemic during the first wave. «The sensational thing – underlined Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Institute – is that 3 of the 6 genes associated with this risk arrived in the modern population from Neanderthals, in particular from the Vindija genome which dates back to 50 thousand years ago. Once perhaps it protected Neanderthals from infections, now it causes an excess of immune response which not only does not protect us but exposes us to a more severe disease.”
Confirmation of a previous study
«It’s not as if we didn’t know that severe Covid is associated with this haplotype inherited from Neanderthals which is on chromosome 3», Remuzzi pointed out, recalling how this aspect had been «seen in an article published in ‘Nature’ by the geneticist Svante Paabo , Nobel Prize winner for medicine”, considered a father of paleogenetics “for his ability to extract ancient DNA from the bones of fossils that lived 40 thousand years ago”.
Genetic predisposition
The victims of the Neanderthal chromosome in the world, he added, “are perhaps one million and they could be precisely those who, in the absence of other causes, die from a genetic predisposition”. 9,733 people from Bergamo and its province took part in the study and filled out a questionnaire. The results of the research, commented the president of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana, “give an answer to one of the questions that any of us has asked ourselves: why do some contract the virus asymptomatically and others in a serious form?”.